10 Tips on How To Make Money Selling On Ebay

My 10 Steps to Success on Ebay

10 Tips on How to Make Money Selling on Ebay. IT CAN BE DONE and I’M NOT KIDDING YOU. The proof is in the pudding as I’ve managed to sell over $1,100.00 in 60 days. Can I retire on this? Ha – not even. But I will tell you it’s so nice to be able to walk into a grocery store without any worries, fill up my gas tank AND …. I’M GETTING RID OF STUFF TO BOOT.

MY PERSONAL STORY

My story is this. My kids think I’m a hoarder. Not like the ones you see featured on TV, but they do think I keep too much stuff – ok, they call it junk. I used to kid them by saying, “just think my little chickadees, one day your moms worldly treasures will be all yours”. I thought it was funny, they did not. But it hit me a couple months ago as I was trying to find a particular “canning item”. And as I went looking and digging around I started thinking my kids were right (and gosh do I hate to admit that) … I DEFINATELY HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF.

So I went on a mission, determined to start purging, starting with the downstairs. Funny it’s been years since my 3 kids have moved out and moved on, and yet a lot of their stuff is still here – in their bedrooms, in their closets, in a spare bedroom, in our “library”, even in my office and the mans office !! Oh, and did I mention alot of the stuff is mine too? I’ve got treasures mixed in with theirs, seeing I also have another bedroom downstairs. No worries – I was doing it !!

First came the calls to the kiddos to see what they wanted to keep. Years ago I was told by my son that he’s become a minimalist, so everything he wanted he had there with him. Weeeeeeell – turns out that’s really not the case. Reminds me of when they were little and I’d try cleaning out their toy box with their help, only to hear – I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THAT !! So to all you new moms out there – you can only clean a toybox when your littles are not around.

So I started sorting – junk for the dumpster, clothes for Goodwill, High School items for the kids personal bins, things they wanted me to keep for them went into more personal bins, and then perhaps valuables – you know, one mans treasure is another mans gold.

Then I did the same for my stuff. Funny thing about my stuff – when I was working I would often stop at Goodwill and Habitat specifically for items I was going to resell. But the problem I started running into was because I was only buying stuff “I liked”, it was hard to give them up. So my second hand store treasures wound up on shelves, in my curio, in bedrooms, and some still in boxes. I’ve had enough. It was all going to go – either by posting on Ebay or back to the second hand store. And that’s how my Ebay success began and this is how it’s still going strong.

10 TIPS ON HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING ON EBAY

What I’ve learned these past 2 months and what is still working for me:

1. START SMALL – sell small items first, items that will fit in bubble wrap envelopes or small boxes. This will save you the expense of purchasing boxes and will also help keep your shipping costs down.
2. RESEARCH – go to Ebay and type in your item and see what it’s selling for and especially what it has sold for in the past. What an item has sold for will give you an idea of how much you may get and what price to start your “bidding” or “buy it now price” at.
3. SELL ONE LIKE THIS / SELL IT NOW – when you find an item that is selling or has sold, and it is exactly like one that you’re going to sell yourself, view the other sellers item. You will see there’s a little button on their listing that says “have one to sell? sell now”. It’s an awesome tool to use because most of the time these sellers have already done all the leg work – like the item specifics that buyers look for. Specifics like age appropriate, brand name, genre, release date, condition – all the details that show up on the left side of a search, which a prospective buyer has narrowed down their search to.
4. DESCRIPTIONS – make yourself a template that has your basic selling details, as in – comes from a smoke free/pet free home, item has been sanitized (people are scared because of COVID), how item will be shipped (ie: bubble envelope or box), how it will be shipped, and your shipping price. This can be copied and pasted at the end of every one of your item descriptions. Describe your item as best as you can – what it is, its condition, how long you’ve had it, the size, color etc etc. There’s an ADVANCED EDITING tab right above the description section, that allows you to change the font size, font color, and to make the words bold. I use this for the title of my description so it stands out – which seems to get potential buyers attention.
5. PICTURES – this one is important. Make sure you take clear pictures of what you’re selling. Front view, back view, side views, details, marks, scratches, etc. Ebay allows a cover picture of your item and 12 more – take advantage of this option as buyers really like to see what exactly they’re buying. If your original picture has a lot of back ground it in – crop it out (Ebay has a tool for that) so that the focus is only on the item you’re selling. If your picture is a little dull – use the photo functions to brighten it up and give it some pop.
6. AUCTIONS vs BUY IT NOW – If you have a set price you want for your item, then go with the “Buy It Now” option, but be prepared to have it sit for a while. You’ll get views, maybe some watchers, but it may take a while to sell (unless you have a hot item). These listings are for 30 days, and if they don’t sell Ebay will auctomatically relist your item. I would suggest at that time to tweek your listing a bit, maybe lower the price. The “Auction” option is what’s working for me. I list mine for 5 days and set the starting price low, a price I don’t mind selling the item for. The way I justify this is the stuff’s been laying around my house, or in a box, or I was going to give it to Goodwill anyways. Getting “something” is better than getting “nothing”, as in a donation to a second hand store. And being greedy will get you zip. You may think your item is valuable while others may thing differently.
7. SHIPPING – I haven’t quite figured out how sellers offer “free shipping” as these costs seriously cut into your profit. I had a couple small items that I sold for $4.99 and by offering the free shipping I wound up paying them to buy my items – SO NOT COOL !! So I found that if I state in the listing that I will pay for half of the shipping costs, buyers like this almost as much as the free shipping. There are some items that I list with the full shipping cost – this seems to also work as well. Trial and error.
8. SHIPPING VIA USPS – if you’re shipping with the US Postal Service, definitely use their Flat Rate boxes and Flat Rate Envelopes because shipping parcels without the flat rate are really, really expensive. And make sure you use Media Mail when shipping videos, CD’s, computer games, books and magazines. Just don’t write ANYTHING, not even a thank you note, and put it inside the Media Mail package. The USPS reserves the right to open any parcel being sent via Media Mail and if there’s anything inside that’s not purely media, the recipient will either be charged the overage or the package will be returned to you – for a fee. It hasn’t happened to me, but it is what I was told by the postal person.
9. SHIPPING VIA SENDLE – my latest discovery. Their prices are definitely cheaper than the postal service, but they have a size limit on what they can send. “Parcels sent with Sendle need to be under 864 cubic inches, under 20 lb, with a combined length and circumference of 108” or less, and sides cannot exceed 47”. This does pose a problem sometimes, but sizes and weight that exceed their limit can then be sent via USPS FLAT RATE PRIORITY MAIL.
10. PAYMENT OPTION – Paypal has dominated the payment option on Ebay and for a good reason. It’s secure and it’s trusted. I’ve been an Ebay member since 1999 and have been using Paypal since day one and have never had an issue. You can have the money MAILED to you in the form of a check, but that will take a week or so to receive it. You can have the money TRANSFERED to your bank account for free – which will take 3 days. OR … you can do an INSTANT TRANSFER which only takes minutes. They do charge a small fee for an instant transfer, but seriously, do I mind them deducting $1.73 so I can get my $173.00 in seconds? NO I DO NOT !!

So there you have them – my 10 Tips on How to Make Money Selling on Ebay and what has been working for me. I hope this helps you make some extra cash selling your stuff that you no longer have any need for. It’s been a fun run for me these past 2 months and I’m not done yet. GOOD LUCK and BEST WISHES. And let me know how it works out for you. Ciao 🙂